Contents

Ireland, 1006. Strange things have been happening at the isolated Abbey of Kells: disembodied voices, unexplained disappearances, sudden death. The monks whisper of imps and demons. Could the Lord of the Dead himself be stalking these hallowed cloisters?

The Doctor and his companion find themselves in the midst of a medieval mystery. At its heart is a book: perhaps the most important book in the world. The Great Gospel of Columkille. The Liber Columbae. The Book of Kells.

The Doctor uses a temporal spectroscope to scan for irregularities in the time space field so as to determine whether any other time travellers have been dragged to the Abbey in 1006. He detects a time eddy in the Abbey's library.

This story marks the first appearance of the Monk in an audio drama as well as his first appearance in performed Doctor Who since the television story The Daleks' Master Plan in 1966.

Sheridan Smith is credited as "Ash Hidminster" (an anagram) in the liner notes, to disguise the reappearance of Lucie.

As the Doctor states, it is a matter of historical record that the Book of Kells was stolen from the Abbey of Kells in 1006. When it was recovered some weeks later, the gold and jewels of the cover were missing, along with several pages. This brief period was the only time that the Book of Kells was outside the monastery until it was placed on display in the Old Library of Trinity College, Dublin in the 19th century, where it remains today.

The Monk refers to the Doctor stealing the directional unit from his TARDIS in Egypt, which caused him to be stranded on an ice planet, the name of which he never learned. He was eventually able to repair his TARDIS sufficiently to allow him to leave the planet, though he has not been able to replace the directional unit. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)